Cleveland anti-lead-poisoning coalition is a laudable step forward but it needs a clear plan of action: editorial

Posted Jan 27, 2019

Dimittra Harris of Kilroy Inc. works on a lead paint and lead dust abatement project at Robert Butler's East Cleveland home on April 12, 2000. Lead-poisoned children remain a challenge in Cleveland and some nearby communities, a challenge that a new coalition pledges to address. (Lonnie Timmons III, The Plain Dealer, File, 2000)

The Plain Dealer, in its 2015 Toxic Neglect series and in subsequent reporting, has found that about 97 percent of Cleveland homes were built before lead paint was banned in 1978. And many of those homes are deteriorating in a city where high poverty gives families seeking affordable housing few options.

The limited lead-poisoning screening that goes on now suggests that, by the time they start kindergarten, one in four Cleveland kids have been exposed to potentially toxic lead levels at some point in their young lives. That can cause persistent learning difficulties and, for some, lasting brain damage.

Bottom line: The lead poisoning of Cleveland children has become a citywide emergency that requires tough, focused and urgent measures aimed at making the city's housing safer for families.

The bad news is that the new coalition hasn't yet finalized what those measures will be.

Despite their laudably strong statements of an intention to act with urgency, the 19-member coalition and its community partners still lack a timeline, overall plan of action with clear metrics and cost estimates, and identified sources of funding.

Meantime, a group called CLASH, or Cleveland Lead Advocates for Safe Housing, is threatening to force action via a ballot measure.

Far wiser will be what the coalition can provide: a practical approach hammered out based on expert input with clear sources of financing.

Yes, the ballot talk reflects understandable frustration with Cleveland's foot-dragging on the lead-poisoning problem. And yes, it probably helped spur formation of the new coalition.

But the best antidote against a hasty or potentially ill-crafted ballot measure is for the new "Lead Safe Cleveland Coalition" to move quickly to draft a specific plan that includes a lead-safe city ordinance with both teeth and financial inducements. The idea should be to get landlords of deteriorating affordable housing to the table without creating a new crisis by driving too many of them out of Cleveland.

Other reforms also are needed, including finding ways to ensure consistent screening for lead poisoning among very young children in Cleveland, and broader efforts to improve the availability of safe affordable housing for low-income families in Cleveland and elsewhere.

Both are reasons for the coalition to reach out to new Gov. Mike DeWine. He might be persuaded to gear his new Children's Initiative efforts, and soon-to-be-written budget request, in part to help Cleveland and other cities expand their stock of safe affordable housing and provide other resources to reduce the terrible price that little kids in lead-poisoned homes are paying.

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson rightly calls the new coalition's joint commitment to move the needle on lead poisoning a major step forward, by creating exponential possibilities for action.

Mt. Sinai Healthcare Foundation President Mitchell Balk, speaking for eight philanthropies in the partnership, promised at the coalition's launch Tuesday that: "Lead Safe Cleveland is rolling up its sleeves, ready to get the job done."

We take those pledges seriously and applaud them. But determination and pledges alone aren't enough.

The lack of specifics on how the lead-safe promises will be achieved in Cleveland -- and when -- needs to be addressed and fixed quickly.

The scale of the threat to the well-being of Cleveland's children -- and by extension, to the success of the just-announced Say Yes to Education project to enable all Cleveland high school graduates to go to college -- is just too urgent.

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